


Like Creepers Entwined

by Snowgrouse



Series: Of Roses Unfurling [7]
Category: Original Work, Thief of Bagdad (1940), كتاب ألف ليلة وليلة | Kitaab 'alf layla wa-layla | One Thousand and One Nights
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Anal Fingering, Anal Play, Anal Sex, Anal-Oral Sex, Androgynous male character, Aphrodisiacs, Ass to Mouth, BDSM, Bisexuality, Biting, Bondage, Brother/Brother Incest, Brotherly Love, Cock Bondage, Come Eating, Culture with casual male bisexuality, Dirty Talk, F/M, Fellatio, Fight Sex, Fightsex, Frottage, Hair-pulling, Hatesex, Het and Slash, Historical, Hurt/Comfort, Incest, Love Letters, Lube, M/M, Magic, Magic as sex aid, Mirror Sex, Mirrors, OC played by Basil Rathbone (Fadl), Open Relationships, Oral Sex, POV Bisexual Character, PWP, Period Attitudes Towards Sexuality and Gender, Pinching, Polyamory, Power Dynamics, Power Play, Prostate Milking, Rimming, Romance, Rough Sex, Sex Toys, Sibling Incest, Sibling Rivalry, Switching, Telepathic Bondage, The Thousand And One Nights - Freeform, Veidtbone - Freeform, Wall Sex, flip flop
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-02
Updated: 2015-10-02
Packaged: 2018-04-24 07:32:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,446
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4910692
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Snowgrouse/pseuds/Snowgrouse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jaffar and Fadl spend one more night together, this time without Yassamin's intercedence. Fadl's bitterness rears its head once more; Jaffar does what he must to temper it, merciless in his love for his recalcitrant brother.</p><p>
  <i>"Don't think I'm done with you yet," Fadl moaned into my mouth as he turned me around and slammed me against the door, undoing the knot at my waist, reaching his hand between my legs so that he might push a finger inside of me.</i>
</p><p> <i>"Does this help?" I laughed in his face incredulously, tearing down his drawers in turn, clawing at his buttocks. "Yassamin told me she felt like the vessel of our reconciliation. Is it flesh that you require to sate your anger, to expel your rage into? Is that it? How many arses, Fadl, how many cunnies will it take until you are done?"</i></p><p>
  <i>"Just yours," he growled, spitting into his hand and working his prick with it. "Turn around."</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Like Creepers Entwined

**Author's Note:**

> A missing scene taking place during the events of [The Cloven Tree.](http://archiveofourown.org/works/3663693) Yassamin asks Jaffar to tell her what he and Fadl got up to when she was away. As in the previous story, Fadl is played by Basil Rathbone, circa The Adventures of Robin Hood.

***

 _RETURN! that to a heart wounded full sore_  
_Valiance and strength may enter in; return!_  
_And Life shall pause at the deserted door,  
_ _The cold dead body breathe again and burn._

\--Hafiz (tr. Gertrude Lowthian Bell)

***

"I am bathing in my own blood for her, Khurshid," Jaffar groans into his hands. "Am I to be a martyr to this love?"

"Mistress Yassamin has only been gone for six hours, master."

Jaffar glares at Khurshid from between his fingers. It is true that Yassamin has only left for Samarra: her sister, Latifa, is travelling through it on her way to Mecca, and Yassamin had joined her on her way there to later escort her through Baghdad. It is only a two-day ride in each direction, so Yassamin should be back in less than a week. She is not in any danger, even: Jaffar had given her a bodyguard the size of a small army to guard her passage. 

Yet, even a week seems unbearable to Jaffar in his current state. He is moping like a besotted youth and knows it, but cannot help it.

"Have a care, Khurshid," he groans. "This is no ordinary love we are speaking of."

"My apologies, master. Is there any way you could communicate with her through your crystal? Through thought-transference, perhaps?"

Jaffar gets up and gathers his robes about himself; the study feels a little cold. "The crystal would only let me observe her, but not talk to her. And telepathy--well, that is the problem exactly. She and I have only just begun to learn how to speak soul to soul," he mutters. "It is only possible to us from a short distance, and that--oh, Khurshid, that is the very reason it feels as if my very heart has been torn out of my chest. Imagine a woman so stepping into your soul that you become but the one soul, and then having to bear the pain of separation once more? No," he shakes his head. "I cannot bear it, I cannot. We were once two halves of one soul in Heaven, and being parted from her, now that I have found her again--it's simply unnatural."

"I am very sorry, master," Khurshid says, offering Jaffar a glass of tea. "Drown your sorrows?"

Jaffar twirls the stick of cassia in his glass. "Opiumated, I hope."

"Only mint, master."

"As if I needed an aphrodisiac now!" Jaffar sighs and sips his tea, then sets it back on the tray, wincing. "No, no. I have to think of something."

It is then that a large bronze plate falls off the wall, rattling onto the floor with a mighty noise. Both men jump, immediately scanning the room for intruders. 

"Show yourself!" Khurshid cries out, holding up a protective amulet hung from a string around his neck. 

Jaffar counts all the bottles on the shelves, but not a single djinni has escaped. "Who are you?" he calls out into the room, waving his hand to light all the lanterns lining the walls so that no corner remains unlit. "In the name of God the Almighty, speak."

A soft, woman's voice, very quiet, echoes from behind them, from the velvet-covered mirror near to where the bronze plate had hung. "Over here, my lords."

Jaffar pulls the cloth off the mirror and coughs at the dust that now billows out of it; this is what he gets for not letting servants into his study. "Who are you and what do you want?" he asks, wiping the mirror with his sleeve.

"I should have thought that was obvious," the blurred woman in the mirror laughs, her visage slowly becoming clearer and clearer. And now, the men realise they are being addressed by a woman with a pair of crooked, love-drunk eyes and a voluptuous pomegranate mouth, all of these set in a heart-shaped face as pale as the moon.

"My lady Yassamin!" Khurshid gasps and prostrates, not knowing where to look, as Yassamin is fully unveiled--and as her shoulders are bare as well, what else has she unveiled? Had she presumed this to be a private, amorous tryst? Jaffar's prick twitches against his robes in delight; Khurshid's unease and Yassamin's boldness arouse him rather than embarrass him.

Yassamin knows this, too, smiling at her husband shamelessly, clearly enjoying Khurshid's distress herself. "Good evening, my lords."

Jaffar strolls over to the mirror, leans against the wall as if a lover chatting to his mistress through a window, flashing her his wickedest smile. "Well, now, my little witch; this is quite the surprise. Where did you learn that trick, if I never taught you it?"

"Latifa is travelling with some eminent fakirs. They said that earnest prayer and true love can make one accomplish miracles, and here I am."

"You're lying. There must have been a specific prayer, a verse, a spell," Jaffar says, but he is more amused than irritated. To think that the girl he had once been spying upon in his mirror is now doing the same to him--oh, it warms his heart, fills it with the sweetest of glows. "Besides, the fakirs do not care for the world of the flesh; they would have wanted you to fix your mind on God and the Hereafter." 

"I told them my husband was as King Solomon, a transmitter of God's beauty and majesty, and as important as any of their shaykhs when it came to giving my soul guidance," Yassamin says, gathering a nightrobe about her breasts. 

_Oh, what a shame,_ Jaffar tuts in his mind; he had almost caught sight of a rosy nipple. "You flatter me," he says and glances down towards his groin, his prick now having truly woken up at such praise. 

"I speak the truth. I miss you, beloved," Yassamin whispers and kisses her fingertips, then presses them against the mirror. "I have a request for you, but would prefer to ask you in private."

Jaffar glances at Khurshid. "You may leave."

Khurshid stumbles to his feet and bolts out of the door. He's barely slammed the door shut when Yassamin drops her nightgown: Jaffar had been right; she had been completely naked underneath it. She laughs as she lowers the mirror onto what seems to be her bed, the mirror facing her like a lover, and now she stretches out in front of it luxuriously, basking in the warmth of Jaffar's gaze. "Finally alone."

Jaffar raises his eyebrow. "I hope you have locked the door."

"The door _and_ the windows. With three spells each."

"Who _is_ it that you've met there, to have suddenly become so interested in the magical arts?" Jaffar grumbles, bracing his hands on his hips. Why, he has always had to nudge Yassamin with a stick to keep her from falling asleep whenever he has been trying to teach her the theory of magic; the only magics she has learned properly have been the ones involved in lovemaking. Yassamin, the love-witch--and at that thought, he feels a sudden twinge of jealousy. "Not Halima?"

"I am not even in Samarra yet! But there's a thought," Yassamin laughs and blows a kiss at the mirror. "It was Latifa. You should meet her one day; she is quite the accomplished shaykha. She was married off to Samarkand when I was but a babe, you see, so I am only now getting to know her properly. I've already invited her to stay at my house in the harem when she returns; you would love her."

" _Two_ Babylonian demonesses instead of one?" Jaffar groans. "You would kill me."

"Says the man who but weeks ago pimped me to his own brother. Which takes me to my request, husband, if you would care to listen."

"Speak." 

Yassamin caresses her breast idly, smirking. "I would you wrote to me."

"What of?" Jaffar says, taking a step back and running his hand over his groin; two can play at this teasing game.

"Love letters. The sorts you wrote me when the Byzantines came. That's part of why I thought I would take a little holiday, you see," she smirks. "To sharpen your desire a little. I miss the demon-lover you became in those letters, and would know him again."

Jaffar hisses and squeezes his cock. "You could've asked me, woman; I could have written you an entire book!"

She but licks her fingertips and brings them to her cunny. "I much prefer it this way, knowing your perversion for delayed gratification," she purrs. "It gives your writing a certain... spice."

"You are _impossible,_ " Jaffar groans and undoes his shalwars, making sure she can see his erection. He delights in the way she now bites her lip, clearly missing his prick--oh, from the way her hips jerk just the tiniest fraction, he is sure her cunny is tightening at the memory of him inside of her. "Such a greedy little wench," he purrs right back at her, stroking his cock, offering it to her. "Come, then. What would you have me describe? What I would do to you, were you here right now?" He glances at the assortment of whips and canes in the corner. "Because I have a mind to take one of those to you right now, young lady."

"I shall be dreaming of it," she says, smiling, leaning her head on her hand, still playing with herself with the other. "But I would you told me of Fadl. What the two of you got up to before he left, when I wasn't there. I saw the marks on your shoulders, and heard you moaning his name in your sleep. What _were_ you doing, husband?"

Jaffar dips his fingers into the wetness at the tip of his cock and licks at them, groaning in exaggerated delight. "You know the games brothers play," he croons, grinning so hard his face aches. "Are you sure you could bear to hear it?"

"As God is my witness," Yassamin says. "Write down all of it, omitting nothing," she says, turning onto her stomach and grinding on her hand, moaning in exaggerated pleasure in turn. "I shall be expecting it tonight."

Jaffar shakes his head. "I would not have time to write all of it down tonight, even if I had an angel as a scribe," he leers. "Tomorrow night, after the nightfall prayers."

"You certainly know how to pique a patron's interest!" she huffs and rolls her eyes. "What am I to think of to get myself to sleep tonight, then?"

"Write to me, my child," Jaffar says, nuzzling the mirror, pressing a kiss to it himself. "Write to me of all the ways in which you would want me to touch you. I am sure there are some you left out the last time."

"I think you know, husband," she moans. She twists and rolls upon the bed, now turning to part her legs so that Jaffar can see where her fingers are playing at: she has pushed two inside of her arse already, the sight making Jaffar's cock sway, drip.

"And here I thought _I_ was being love-sick," Jaffar laughs, stroking himself more vigorously, now; Merciful Lord, she makes him feel like a boy, ready to expel his seed this very second. "Rub yourself. Show me."

"No," she says, shaking her head, biting her lip. Trembling a little with effort, she pulls her fingers out, then lifts them to her mouth. "Not until I have my story."

And as she pushes her gleaming fingers into her mouth, Jaffar can hold back no longer: shouting, he comes into his hand, so violently he sprays the mirror as well as his fist.

"Witch!" he groans, but the last thing he sees is Yassamin waving at him and turning the mirror dark once more.

*** 

My beloved Yassamin,

God be with you, wherever you may be as you read this. I am not going to bother with a cipher this time, as I am planning to pass you this missive through magical means--far safer than trusting these things to a pigeon or a human messenger, I'm sure you'll agree. Not that this wouldn't require an entire towerful of pigeons, of course, since as I am sure you can recall, Fadl and I spent the entire evening together after I had finished my business at the court.

And what an evening it was! Remember how tired I was the next day? Well, now I shall tell you the reasons why, omitting nothing, as per your request.

That night, I hosted a private feast in my brother's honour--only half a dozen entertaining-girls and a few of my favourite drinking companions. I did everything in my power to make Fadl feel welcome, to reassure him that I truly loved him as a brother should, and that all our past feuds were now forgotten. 

And while I saw a sea change had come about his face, I nevertheless spied some strange sadness still lingering within his eyes, some secret sorrow that I could not fathom. It was the sort of subtle melancholy only people who are very close to each other can sense, I think, since our companions certainly didn't. 

Oh, no, they had a most wonderful time indeed; it was a raucous feast, the ribald jokes flowing as freely as the wine. Abu Nuwas tore his under-drawers as he rolled on the floor from his laughter, and Aixa was so mad from lust for Fadl that she ended up pouring cupfuls of wine down her breasts for him to drink. They kissed and pawed at each other quite shamelessly, very nearly copulating before the entire crowd.

And that's when the trouble started.

You see, it was then that Fadl declared that he wanted to marry Aixa, yet I refused to give her up--as I've told you before, translators like her don't grow on trees. Had Fadl agreed to remain in Baghdad so that Aixa could have kept on working here, the matter would have been settled, but he was adamant: he wanted to take her to Balkh with him. And of course, Aixa wanted to be his queen, seemingly not even considering how many wives he must have already had waiting for him there. She made a scene, raging and weeping, ignoring me when I told her she would be miserable amongst the barbarians there--can you imagine an urban scholar of her ilk in greasy, stinking lamb-skins, scribbling down Sanskrit sutras in frosty mountain chambers?

No; I couldn't either, yet neither of them would listen. In the end, I had to have the guards separate them and drag Fadl towards his bedchamber myself, telling everyone to excuse us for the night. 

The moment I had closed the door behind myself, Fadl slammed my face against it, so hard stars danced inside my skull.

"Wretched fool. You would pimp me your wife, cunny and arse, yet not allow me to carry off a paltry slave girl?"

I spun him around and threw him against the door in turn--at this juncture, I must remind you that this was nothing unusual for us; fights such as these were everyday occurrences for us when we were boys. But now, I was tired of it, tired of this old ritual dance, as if we were not princes but mere savages who could only communicate in blows. Fadl struggled, but I held him fast, enforcing my grip with a little magic in order to restrain him where he stood. I pinned his arms to the door, pressed his knees with my knees, locking him in place with a swift rune, then held his gaze with mine. I let him hiss and spit there for a little while, let him waste his energy, and only then took his beard-tip in my hand and spoke my mind loud and clear.

"First of all: Aixa Umm Rumi al-Majrit is no paltry slave girl. She speaks seven languages, some of them dead. You have seen the House of Wisdom; surely, then, you also understand that its scholars _are_ its wisdom. I would not give her up for any price, to any man, unless it was agreed that she could keep her position. That is my final word on the matter. Second: we are no longer boys, brother, but grown men!" I shouted at him, knowing I could be heard in the corridor, but I did not care for this, as I wished for my voice to be heard. I was no longer his little brother, someone he could bully into submission as he pleased. "I am Caliph of all Islam, God's viceregent upon Earth, and as such, my word is law. Do not ever, do you hear me, _ever_ raise your voice against me in front of my subjects again, or I will have your _head!_ "

And I knew what was coming: I covered his mouth with my hand before he could spit in my face. I lowered my voice; what I was to do next was no business of my bodyguards'. "I have been patient with you, brother mine, have offered you my love," I said, taking my other hand to his groin, stroking his cock through his silks. "And already you have forgotten the vows we swore over our queen's heart last night?" I meant to be stern, but felt my voice wavering; I had hardly partaken of the wine that night, yet felt a crushing sadness come over me. "What _is_ it in you, my Fadl, what demon that so keeps you from happiness?" I whispered, kissing his cheek. I stroked his cock with such gentleness, feeling it grow ever harder in my hand, as hard as his anger, and felt strangely clement: I felt a sob escape his mouth into my hand, and fancied that I was drawing it from him, as if drawing poison from a wound.

"Speak, my brother," I said, taking my hand from his mouth, yet not removing the other from his prick. "We have offered you all kindness, all friendship, and yet you would fight us?"

"Let me go."

I knew exactly what he would do, yet some perversion in me, perhaps a demon of my own, made me flick my hand to undo the spell. "You are free."

And soon enough, the demon in him was upon me, his mouth upon mine, his hand stroking me as I was now stroking him. "Don't think I'm done with you yet," he moaned into my mouth as he turned me around and slammed me against the door once more, undoing the knot at my waist, reaching his other hand between my legs so that he might push a finger inside of me.

"Does this help?" I laughed in his face incredulously, tearing down his shalwars in turn, clawing at his buttocks. "Yassamin told me she felt like the vessel of our reconciliation. Is it flesh that you require to sate your anger, to expel your rage into? Is that it? How many arses, Fadl, how many cunnies will it take until you are done?"

"Just yours," he growled, spitting into his hand and working his prick with it. "Turn around."

But oh, his face as I reached into my pocket and placed a jar of cream into his hand! He loathed the smile I shot him over my shoulder as I lowered my shalwars and faced the door. He had thought to humiliate me, to take me by force, but how can you force the willing? "You were going to do it in any case, so I thought I would arrive prepared."

He let out a cry of rage at that, throwing the jar across the room so that it smashed against the opposite wall. Furious, he pushed me against the door and kicked my legs apart, pressed his cock against my entrance and attempted to force himself inside with but spit. Yet with his size, he would never have been able to do it, and we both knew this. I closed my body to him, locked the muscles of my arse to reject him, stiffened so that he was but huffing and puffing and snarling against me, useless, hopeless, humiliated. 

"I hate you," he cried, bouncing my head off the door, panting against my back, his pride in tatters.

"No, you don't," I said, and now he let me turn around to face him, let me gather him into my arms so that I might kiss him deep, deep. Now that he had been broken open a little, I could better slide the balm of my care inside of him, and I devoured his mouth with true passion, sinking my fingers into his hair, rutting against his body. We were both erect still, both still heated, and he answered my kiss a man starving, as if he wanted to swallow me into himself a drug. 

"Oh, Fadl, Fadl, you poor wretch," I murmured, cupping his face in my hands. It was not that I had believed that but one night in our arms could have healed him completely, but he was still a sorry sight, and it hurt me to see him like this, after all the love we had bathed him in. "What have the years done to you?"

He choked, pressing his forehead against mine, not daring to look me in the eye. "I'm sorry."

"Brother, brother," I said, nuzzling his nose with mine, dropping a kiss on it, a kiss tender, soft. "There is still a part in you that believes he is not loved. Is that not so?" A part in him that was still jealous, a part that still felt abandoned, a part that wanted his brother back. "Be honest with me."

"Is that not obvious?" he laughed bitterly.

I stroked his temples with my thumbs, coaxing him into looking at me, and now his ever-heavy eyelids were weary from pain, his eyes a dark blue as they glimmered from withheld tears. A Caspian blue, I thought, that sorrow-colour of his eyes, always reminding me of that cold summer we had spent by that sea as youths, with only each other for comfort. I will tell you of that summer sometime, Yassamin, but what mattered for now was the memory of it, of the way we had each clung to the other during those long, windy nights of the last summer we had spent together as lovers.

For thirty years, we had lost that connection, yet I would excavate it from underneath all that had passed: Caliphs, wars, lovers, the memories of families now dead and gone. 

When he still said nothing, I undid his shirt, slid my hand into the warmth within and rested my hand over his heart. A heart not unlike mine: proud, greedy, bitter, given to foolish, dangerous lusts for power and flesh. Yet this heart, just like mine, carried within itself the best qualities of both our parents: our father's wisdom, our mother's compassion--the very qualities our heathen ancestors thought the keys to a happy life, to enlightenment itself.

"It is still a human heart that beats within this breast," I whispered. "And I would mend it, Fadl. But you have to let me."

He closed his eyes and hissed from between his teeth. "You have tried already. It's not that I am not grateful. Your wife--" He looked up at the ceiling and drew in a shuddering breath, still trying not to let tears escape his eyes. "She made me think I had died from joy and was being embraced by a houri in Paradise."

I shook my head. "Paradise has not gone anywhere," I said and turned us around once more so that now it was he who was resting against the door. "It is right here," I murmured against his mouth with a kiss, rubbing our bare cocks against each other, making love to him with my mouth and my hips. 

He grabbed my buttocks and laughed. "You're a little too old to be a page of Paradise."

"Yet you would have taken me like one!" I laughed. But before he could answer, I had taken his hands and pinned them up against the door, whispering a binding-spell once more. "But I am thinking that it is something else that you need tonight, brother mine, is it not?" 

His eyes flew wide and he swallowed, staring at me in shock; he looked as if he was about to protest, but did not, regarding me with a strange curiosity.

I merely locked his feet in place with a flick of my hand and nodded. "It's about time, is it not?" 

And he knew what I meant, understood the gravity of it, stiffening against my touch. It had always been Fadl who had been taking me, you see, never the other way around; it had always been Fadl who had been the one in control. But it was control he needed to give up tonight. "You always yearn to take, Fadl, but there are other ways of taking in the love of another," I kissed against his mouth. "It is said that the one who surrenders is the one who receives the most love, and that is what I would offer you, tonight."

"Surrender?" he scoffed, a little incredulously, but his heart wasn't in it, I could tell. 

Oh, no, on the contrary: I could feel his cock swelling in my hand further, his hips trembling like those of a hound about to be unleashed. "Yes, surrender." I made a loose fist of my hand, caressing his cock in the exact way I knew he loved, rolling my palm around the shaft, pressing underneath the head with my thumb. "Do you yield, brother?"

He leaned his head back and closed his eyes. "And what if I say 'no'?"

I kissed his neck, his beautiful neck, felt his pulse fluttering against my lips, felt him shudder so that a drop of his arousal fell onto my thumb. I rolled it across the head, rolled it, spread it, pressed myself against him, moving my mouth to his ear. "Then I shall let you go. But you don't want me to do that, brother, now do you?"

"God--!" he groaned, bucking into my hand, struggling between his stubborn pride and the pleasure I was now offering him. "You are such a bastard, Jaffar; such a bastard."

"Don't insult our mother so!" I laughed, lifting my thumb to my mouth, the salt of his sap making my own cock sway in turn. I made him watch as I licked my palm, wet it, slickened it; as I returned it to his cock, he _moaned._ "I ask you again, brother. Do you surrender?"

"I--I sur--"

Yet he had not even finished gasping "surrender" before I had fallen to my knees and sucked his cock into my mouth. I am quick to punish, but equally quick to reward: never let it be said Jaffar, son of Yahya is not a fair man. 

Yet I wished to relish this, so I pulled back with a wet smack, grinning up at him, still stroking him in my hand. "Louder," I said, then slapped the head of his cock against my tongue.

"I surrender, you bastard!" he groaned, his hips lifting off the door. "And curse your name to the lowest of Hells with it, oh, God--"

But his curses were cut short as I swallowed him, slickened my mouth so that he slid in and out whole, letting him nestle in my throat for as long as I could. At this juncture, I thanked you, my love, for all those times you had taken your pleasure from making me fellate our jade friend; your perverse little caprices had helped keep my skills intact. And as I had not had the chance to truly savour his cock with my mouth the previous night, I proceeded to make up for lost time this very moment. I sucked every inch of his flesh, seeking the traces of you and myself from it, drinking in the taste of his sweat, the must of his glands, oh, my own erection jerking with twisted delight as I swallowed that little trace of piss still lingering at the tip. 

"So I take it you didn't bother to wash the last time you used the privy," I tutted as I pulled back for breath; "you're as unclean as a Christian."

He grit his teeth. "I wouldn't know what a Christian cock tasted like. Is this some kind of brothel you and your wife run?" he laughed bitterly. "Is this how you practice diplomacy? Negotiation through prostitution? Tell me, Jaffar; how many others have you taken thus? Am I but one in a long line of--"

I only squeezed upon his sack a little in warning. "Have a care." Even now, he was still fighting me, still trying to prove to himself that this did not matter, that I did not mean what I said and did. 

"Or what?" he spat, wincing as I twisted his sack harder. "Or you will unman me?"

"If necessary," I murmured, looking into his eyes. Brothers or not, I had reached the end of my patience--that he would throw my love in my face this way, even as I had my mouth full of his cock? This would not do; this would not do at all. Therefore, I spat on my fingers and guided two to his arse, pushing in with far too much brutality. "I was going to be gentle with you, Fadl," I said, my anger rising to my throat. "I was going to be kind. I was going to make love to you. But if I am going to have to punish you, to savage you, and don't think I wouldn't--"

"Jaffar!" he croaked, gooseflesh breaking out upon his thighs, all of him now twisting against the door in true pain.

I let go and got to my feet, cupping the back of his head, pressing his forehead against mine. "Last chance. I would love you, brother. You must know that." He tried to pull his head free, but I grabbed his hair and pressed against his body with my entire weight. "But you must _let me,_ Fadl. I ask you, once again, and I want you to answer me truthfully. Do you surrender? And you know what I mean by it."

"But I don't," he said quietly, still defiant. "Refresh my memory."

"I do not mean a surrender of your strength, brother, but a letting go of your weakness--that of your pain and your foolish pride," I said, looking into his eyes. "You drag your pain around like a sack of rotting fruit on your back! It stains you, makes you reek, and by now you have mistaken it for a part of you. Toss it aside. I have prepared a bath for you, a bath of love, and would you rather not step into it and be cleansed? I want to see you strengthened by love, made a man whole by it, while you still seem to think you would be defeated by it. Let go of this rot, my brother, I am begging of you."

"What's happened to you, Jaffar?" he laughed with a sneer, yet I could see his face soften a little as he considered my words. "So noble, so philosophical, when you used to be so ruthless before."

I grinned and clasped his cock against mine, stroking both in my hand. "Come, is this not a little ruthless? And did I not just threaten you with brutalities? But you are avoiding the question. You are a reasonable man, Fadl, and I would reason with you." I laughed and glanced down at our cocks, their heads kissing each other in my fist. "Your mind may resist, but already your body has been persuaded."

"And what will I--" he groaned, lifting upon his toes to rut into my fist, "what will I gain from this surrender?"

"Freedom, brother," I kissed against his mouth, "and with it pleasure, beauty, and might. Come."

Again, I released him from his bonds completely, and again, he assaulted me, bruising my mouth with his kiss. I walked him backwards onto the bed, let him play the ravisher, let him tear our clothes from us. And upon the bed, we wrestled, we fought, I letting him use my body for his resistance, to work out the last of his rage. You had called us two great cats, and it was that remark I was now reminded of as we struggled there, clawing and biting and kissing, yet neither of us giving in. In fact, it was my not submitting that made his desire even harder, sharper, keener; he wet my belly with his arousal, his prick so hard against me it was as if he were attempting to gut me with it.

But it was your weapon that I conquered him with, the same pleasure with which you had disarmed him last night: I turned him onto his side, locked my thighs around his waist in a wrestler's grip and buried my face in his arse. He howled against my legs, convulsed against me as I hugged his buttocks with my arms, and even now, he tried to claw his way out of my grip, but I held him fast. Crazed from my will to subdue him, I took his arse with my mouth, fucked it with my tongue, pounding the bones of my face into him to mimic the blows of a lover's hips. He tasted far stronger than you do, far danker than Theo, and I knew that what I was doing was unforgivably unclean a sin, but I could not stop now. I spread his buttocks with my hands, spread wide his folds until they parted, conquered each crease with my stiffened tongue; filth or no filth, he was _mine._ And oh, how he moaned, how he bit his arm, how he jerked and cursed and kicked; oh, how that knot of flesh loosened and sucked and again loosened about my tongue!

"Jaffar, you son of a dog, you infidel scum, I'll--" he moaned, but I threw him onto his back, lifted his legs over my shoulders and ate him as if he were a woman, spread my hands on either side of his arsehole just as you do when you make mine into a cunt, just like you do, my love. And now, he didn't even pretend to resist, only fucked my mouth back with his hips, punishing me with them, throwing them with the skill borne from decades of swordsmanship, his hand swift and tight upon his cock. So violently he took me that drops of his sap flew into my eyes, and I fancied that with some of those belly-ripples, he attempted to fart in my face, but even those I would have swallowed, now; no crumbs of filth, no sebum, no gas would hinder my conquest. 

Yet even _my_ ears rang, hurt as he shouted out in his release, his feet spasming upon my back, slipping, the hair on his legs scratching my shoulders. Had anyone done this to him in this manner, I wondered? Any courtesan, any of those older men we had sometimes been preyed upon by? Because I doubted it, from the sheer astonishment upon his face as his head lolled back, as he gasped for air, staring at the ceiling. He squeezed his cock one last time, his hand trembling as it knocked against his hip and then fell onto the bed, his entire body shuddering. 

"Jaffar," he but gasped, barely out loud.

I but sucked his cock into my mouth, lapped up his semen from his belly, and only then laid myself on top of him, letting him taste himself from my mouth. I took his hands in mine, laced my fingers with his and hugged him, held him, crushed him against my chest and he let me; _this, I am offering you, and this is but the start, my brother, but the start,_ I murmured within my mind, even if I did not know whether he could hear me. But I told him this with the warmth and the strength with which I held him, the way I used to hold the child Fadl whenever he had awoken from a nightmare.

"This, I mean to give you," I murmured against his cheek, nuzzling his nose with mine. "Fadl, I would take you."

"You had better," he slurred, and the look in his eyes was that of a drunkard. 

Despite his orgasm, I was astonished that he did not put up more of a fight. "You really do mean it?"

"To hell with it," he grumbled and wrapped his legs around me, kissing me long, lingering. "We might as well." He searched my eyes for a while, as if telling himself he could trust me, as if telling himself to let go, finally tired of his own resistance. I could spy a little curiosity, too, a little amusement upon his face; he chuckled a little as he rocked me in the nest of his arms and legs. "Why not indeed?" he murmured. "Make love to me, then. Like you make love to your wife."

"No," I said, kissing his eyelids, kissing his palms, my heart twisting with the pain from the love I felt for him. "I am going to make love to you like you are my brother."

He only laughed at that, a laugh sweet and true, soft with a little frown, shaking his head. "You had better hurry before I change my mind."

I glanced at the wall and the remains of the cream still dripping down it. "I could use that, but I'm not going to risk shrapnel. I presume you have got something?"

Fadl nodded towards a bundle beside the bed. "In that bag," he said, stretching out on the bed, crossing his arms behind his head and tickling me with his toes as I bent down to pick it up. "If there's anything left over from Aixa. God, but she enjoyed being screwed--and I mean screwed; like one of your automatons, she was, bouncing up and down on my prick--"

I shut him up with a kiss. He was exaggerating, of course; there was plenty of oil left in the bottle I found in his bag. Yet I did not use it on him yet; I merely laid it within reach and continued to embrace him, kiss him.

"Slowly," Fadl sighed as he pulled back for breath.

"I was going to," I murmured, kissing him again with all the tenderness I was capable of, showing him I was going to do this properly. God knows both of us needed it, deserved it.

Thus, I laced his fingers with mine and pressed him down into the bed, making love to him with my entire weight, so that I could feel the echoes of his heartbeat within my own chest. The sperm upon his belly had not even had time to dry before he was erect once more, his cock rolling sweet and swollen against mine as I took him with my hips. When I closed my eyes, I could again feel the warm yellow light of our tent from the days Father had taken us on long, dreary hunting trips; when Fadl had taken his pleasure of me in this manner and everyone else had thought we were but taking in our midday rest. And immediately, this memory was followed by one of frustration and bitterness: of the time when Mohammad and Musa were old enough to join us on these trips and we could no longer get away with it, having had to share our tent with them. How long ago had that been?

"Remember when Musa nearly caught us doing this? Thirty-two years ago, almost to the day," Fadl laughed against my lips. "They could've painted a dome with my balls, that's how blue they were."

I blinked. I did not feel Fadl inside of my mind, so he couldn't have picked up the thought from me, but I supposed it was inevitable that we would have both made the connection. "Can you feel what I feel?" I asked him nevertheless, stroking his temple. "Yassamin can."

"If you mean your sorceries... a little," he said, somewhat uneasily. "But it roils off you, perversion. Lift up."

I did, and he poured a little oil between our bellies, then put the cork back in and tossed the bottle aside. "There," he sighed and clasped both our cocks in his slickened fist. "Much better."

"Oh--" I fell over him for a moment, there, from the shock of warmth from the oil, recognising it for what it was from its sharp, bitter scent. "Saffron?" I groaned, but as the warmth now transmuted into heat, a heat made near-painful from the rub of Fadl's hand, I shivered on top of him in hopeless pleasure. Saffron, saffron, marvellous for enhancing the circulation--but also a powerful dye, I remembered as I glanced down between us, our cocks now golden from it. "I'm going to be yellow for days!" I protested. "Yassamin's going to throw me out of bed when she sees it!"

"I doubt it. Pretend you're a Chinese envoy and it's another one of your diplomatic _missions,_ " Fadl hissed and grinned like such a bastard that I would have slapped him, had I been able to control my body any longer. The way he used his hand, the way the oil sent little licks of heat all over my cock, like I was being fellated by fire-demons--oh, it was impossible to stay still.

"Oh, God," I groaned, bucking into his touch, having to spread my legs on either side of him, rutting into his fist like a crazed adolescent. 

"It's _delicious,_ isn't it? Turns your prick into a _brand._ "

"And you'll undo me," I groaned, now taking my cock into my own hand, wanting desperately to stroke myself to completion that very second, holding my breath so as not to do so yet. But rarely have I had a night upon which I could not come twice, so I might as well--oh, hell, it would make me last longer the second time, the time I finally took him; all the better to torment him with. And now I was too curious, and he had been far too smug, so there was only one thing for it.

"You're not serious," Fadl said, his eyes snapping wide open as I climbed over his hips and started to lower myself onto his cock. 

"I am," I said, huffing, slipping with the oil as I started to guide him inside of myself. I was still sore from last night, so sore, and despite all the stretching you two had subjected me to, Fadl's monstrous size meant I struggled for quite a while to take him. In fact, my prick wilted a little, and now I wasn't so sure if I _would_ reach release from this after all. Yet, I told myself as I drew in a deep breath, slowing down was my intent; that, and teasing Fadl for as long as I could. And now, I was succeeding at that as I finally slid down on him with a delighted, if somewhat undignified cry.

"There," I sighed and rolled my hips a little. "Merciful God, you are right; it feels marvellous. Like making love to someone feverish." 

"I would know by now if you hadn't decided on a detour!" he sighed.

"Are you complaining?" I asked him, lifting my hips and lowering them again to feel this wonderful heat spreading all over my insides, massaging him with the muscles of my belly as I went, dancing on top of him. "I never got to do this last night," I purred, having always loved riding him in this manner, being able to control the pace of our copulations myself. 

He pulled me down and kissed me hungrily, tugging a little on my hair, thrusting up with his hips. "Such a greedy little arse," he crooned, and now I could smell the honey in the oil as I huffed into the stickiness of his palm, moaning out my pleasure. 

"Don't think I'm not going to fuck you," I groaned as I undulated on top of him a little faster, as I bit his shoulders, pinched his nipples a little, forcing him to buck into my guts. "How about I do it with your sperm running down my sack? What would you say to that, Fadl?"

"God, Jaffar, you're worse than a courtesan!" he laughed, but with such delight, now truly thrusting into me, smacking my arse with his hands, clawing and groping my buttocks. "Such a little tart, you always were," he continued, knowing exactly what his slurs did to me--where, my dear Yassamin, do you think I learned to tease you with words in such a manner? Thus, I drew these word-lashes out of him with my body, drew them up, lifted little curses onto his lips each time I lifted my hips, pulled the muscles of my arse across the length of his cock again, again and again.

"More," I moaned into his mouth, guiding his hand to my cock, now even harder than before thanks to the saffron, the honey, the sublime joy of being so penetrated. I was so close to the peak, now, so close; each stroke of his cock sliding straight past my gland, so that each time I sat down on him, I trickled over his hand. All I needed now were a few words, a few words to push me over the edge and I would be there, there. 

"When was it that you burned for me the most, brother?" I keened at him, riding him violently, now, my hair falling into my eyes. "Tell me. When was the hardest you ever took me? Because I am going to _double_ that, Fadl. I'm going to take you harder than you ever took me, God; I'm going to make you _blind--_ "

"Enough!" With a mighty cry, he pushed me off himself, his hands shaking as he opened the bottle and poured some oil on his fingers, working it inside of himself. "Either you'll do it now or never."

I took the bottle from him and wrestled him down just as I had done before, my arse to his face and my face to his groin; swiftly, I slid my fingers inside of his hole and swallowed his richly smeared cock into my mouth. He howled, his arse cramping around my fingers, but I sat on his face and smeared it with my cock, my full and heavy balls. "Tell me," I ordered him, my voice hoarse, my entire body trembling from joy as the salt-metal of my own arse now mingled in my mouth with the saffron and the oil and the sugar. "Tell me and I'll take you."

He closed his teeth around my perineum, but at the last moment, he held back from truly biting me; he wanted me too much to inflict a pain that might unman me. This, however, did not stop him from pushing God knows how many fingers inside of me in revenge, reaching for my prostate so as to make me even harder, keener to take, take, take. Howling, I took it, took it and suffocated my cries on his cock, gagging myself on his foam-streaked flesh, fucking his fingers back with my arse, relentless. "Tell me," I again rasped as I pulled back for breath, strings of spit lashing out of my mouth to lick my throat.

Lewdly, he spat on my arse and continued to take me with his hand. "Dunya's house," he hissed. "When she was gone for the night and you put on her clothes." He inhaled theatrically, then thrust up with his hips to choke my throat, my gags punctuating his words. "When you smeared ambergris and honey on your _cunt,_ like a slave girl does. Do you still do that? Hmm?"

"As a matter of fact, I haven't done it since," I said, coughing, wiping my mouth as I lifted off him, as I turned around and pulled his legs over my shoulders. "Remind me to do that the next time you come over," I murmured against his mouth as I guided my cock to his arse. "It was like this, was it not?"

The way a man and a woman do it, face to face, when we had usually done it from behind. And now he grew quiet, less playful, just as I did; I brushed sticky strands of his hair away from his temples. I knew sodomy would be more difficult in this position, knew it might hurt more. Thus, I hesitated, held his legs, ready to set them down. "Would it be easier, if--"

"Not tonight," he said and shook his head. "Not like that." And in the quiet plea in his voice, I heard _not like them,_ not like the older men, for they never took us boys like this; it was simply not done. This position was only for men and women who truly loved one another, or those few sodomites who were brave enough to sin eye to eye.

Lovers, and brothers. The most extraordinary of brothers, brothers closer to each other than any brothers had ever been, in both hating and in loving. And it was only love that I now saw in his eyes, love and warmth, and a need I would no longer deny him.

"All right," I said, smiling, and kissed his foot.

But oh, his surprise when I spread and bent that leg of his and locked it in place! He said nothing as I did the same thing with the other, so that he was now bound with invisible chains, just as before. "So that you won't have to hold them up, you see. Are you comfortable?"

He rolled his eyes, grabbed my hair and pulled me into a kiss. "You're an idiot." 

"And we are old men," I smiled against his mouth.

"Go on," he said, wrapping his arms about my neck, "before we're in the grave."

But soon, his words died out as I started to push inside, short little strokes in and out, stretching him slowly, gently. He was too silent, too stiff; so overwhelmed from his penetration that he forgot to breathe, I could tell.

"Breathe out and push," I told him as he had told me so many times, countless times; tenderly, I stroked his cock with the backs of my fingers. "Touch yourself."

And he broke my heart there and then, the first moment I slid past the gates to his body: the shock and the awe as he shuddered, all of his skin covered in goosebumps were a marvel to behold. He looked so young, now, and I wondered how many terrors, how many nightmarish memories he was pushing out of his mind just as he was now pushing laboured breaths out of his lungs. His chest heaved, trembled; his eyes flicked to and fro underneath his shining, tightly closed eyelids. 

I had to keep on moving, knowing it would hurt much more if I stayed still; I scooped up what little oil we had left and slickened myself further with it, trying not to go too deep yet. I pulled back a little and angled my hips so that I could be sure I was now brushing against his gland, thus giving him more pleasure than pain; yet even now, his belly rippled at each one of my thrusts so that it looked as if I was impaling him. This sight shocked me, as I had never truly witnessed it before, the way I could now see that subtle movement of his muscles and his skin as his innards were pushed aside.

Was this what I, too, looked like when I was being taken, I wondered, since he was as thin as I, not having a woman's soft belly to disguise the impact my penetration had on his body? And if this was the effect my prick had on someone with no womb, how much more had I made women suffer with my size? How close had I come to inflicting injuries, gutting a lover when I had thought I had been but making love to them? Perhaps you are laughing at me right now, my sweet, knowing how much your body can take, but I felt a brute that moment.

Still holding back from thrusting too deep, I leaned forwards and touched his cheek with my fingertips; he shuddered at even that little touch. "Am I hurting you?" I asked him, rolling my hips with all the tenderness I could muster.

He opened his eyes a fraction; from underneath his heavy lashes I could only see his eyes were so dilated they seemed again a Caspian blue, yet now a sea of pleasure and wonder rather than one of pain. "Let's just say that I will never mock your size again," he slurred, a dry laugh escaping his lips. "But no, you are not hurting me; on the contrary."

I nuzzled his nose with mine. "I am glad to hear that. Do you think you could take more?"

"Much more, you lazy wretch," he said, laughing so that I was nearly pushed out of him. 

Despite understanding this for a boast and knowing that he must have still hurt a little, I kissed him and set out to take him with an easy, languid rhythm. Yet in but moments, sabotaged by the vibrations of his chuckles, this easy rhythm was gone and I was moving faster, cursing myself for losing myself so. The care I had felt for him had slowed me down a little, but his tightness, the heat of his body enhanced by the saffron soon drove me to a frenzy. He laughed at me like a devil, was as hot as Hell itself on the inside and I lost myself driving my prick deeper into this furnace, harder and harder, the infernal heat climbing, leaping up my spine--

"You're coming," Fadl laughed, slapping his cock against my belly as he kept stroking himself, his other hand in my hair. "You're making those little noises again."

"Shut up!" I spat, but his body's heat, oh, his demon-heat, sucking me in with each stroke--

"Release my legs. I'll help," he smirked.

With a groan, I did, and again he captured me in his embrace, holding on to me with his arms, gathering me against himself with his legs. I whimpered and fell into his flames, let him consume me, let him swallow me as I spiralled hopelessly towards my end. And laughing, laughing loudly, he milked me with his legs and his hips like a prostitute, even if it must have given him discomfort to have me buried so deep inside of him in this position. I had meant to pound him senseless, had meant to take him properly, but oh, the embarrassment as he undid me thus, with the aid of a simple herb! Again, he became the victor and I the one vanquished as with a low, shameful cry, I spilled inside of him like a virgin youth on his wedding night.

"Oh, my wellspring," he cackled and held me, rocking me in his embrace as my sperm trickled out of his arse, "you never change."

"Don't think I'm done with you yet, you blasted scoundrel," I growled, willing myself to stay hard, forcing myself to move inside of him even if it still burned a little, even if all I wanted was to collapse and fall asleep. I was furious with my body, with the way it had let me down like this. My release hadn't even been all that satisfying, and dimly, I wondered if it had been because I had been fool enough to try and sate myself with his prick first: thanks to that, my body had been expecting a deeper, internal orgasm, and now to have had it only in the front felt much weaker, hardly an orgasm at all.

"I'm not going anywhere," Fadl drawled, continuing to stroke himself. "Take my legs up again."

I gathered his legs over my shoulders and pressed as deep inside of him as I could. "Like this?"

"Oh, God--" From the way his body now stiffened, I must have hit him at a wrong angle. "Please, let me turn around," he mumbled.

"A moment." I realised I needed to take a break myself, needed to pull out of him a little--I was surprised that it was still sperm and not ash trickling out of my prick and his arse, that's how hot it still felt, even if my ejaculation had brought down the heat a little. 

And cooling my prick aside, I had come upon an idea which I needed to put into practice, forthwith. I sifted Fadl a cup of wine, and while he drank, I removed the tapestry at the foot of the bed and drew a large square upon the wall in its place, a square as large as the bed itself, the height of two men; two very tall men.

"What are you doing?" 

"Just giving us a better view, that's all." 

I would be absolutely exhausted tomorrow--they say never to practice love-play and major magic on the same day!--but I was determined not to be cheated of the pleasure of seeing his face as I took him. Therefore, I took the small mirror that had hung beside the door, and with a few carefully chosen seed-syllables, I used the four corners of the square I'd just drawn to stretch out the mirror upon them, as if I were spreading out a sheet to dry upon four pegs. I stretched out the sheet of silver until it was a very thin film, as thin as a soap bubble, spreading it out until it filled the entire square.

Now, we could see the entire bed reflected in it, and more importantly, ourselves. 

"There," I said, flicking my hand one last time to fix the mirror in place. "This place was in need of some redecoration."

"I don't believe it. You could use this magic--" Fadl nodded, "to work miracles, bring machines to life, even transport yourself to Samarkand, I expect, and _this_ is what you waste it on?"

I took the cup from him and emptied it, then came to kneel behind him so that we were both facing the mirror. "Are you complaining? Because I would not call this a waste, not by any standard," I said and stroked his chest, his belly, kissing his neck.

"Not at all," he said and curled the tips of his moustache, admiring his reflection. "That's a very fine, athletic gentleman we've got there. Shame about the scarecrow."

At that, I shoved him forwards and tugged his head up by the hair, wrapping one arm around his neck. "You asked for it," I purred in his ear, loving the way his cock swayed, how his balls lifted from the pain; hell, he was smirking at us both in the mirror. "Besides, you were getting a little too proud there." I pushed him onto his hands and knees, still hanging firmly onto his hair. "Ever watched yourself being taken, brother?"

"No, I--" but then he could no longer speak as I was pushing my cock inside of him, so much more easily than before, his entire body stiffening as I slid in almost to the hilt with my very first strokes. Oh, no; now he only let out cries, delicious cries; cries as exquisite as the white ring of foam now gathering at the root of my cock. Why, I did not even know where to look to pleasure my eyes the most: the glory of my brother's face as he was so humiliated, or the way the muscles of his hole were now completely smooth, stretched out as they were around my cock. The exact same dilemma we had suffered with the crystal in the observation chamber, remember?

But Fadl decided for me. Keening, he rose and pushed himself back onto my cock, now shameless in his need, desperately stroking himself, balancing on one hand. "Please."

"Already you are begging," I purred. "Shall I help you with that?"

I knew I might do myself an injury with this trick, but it was too marvellous an idea to resist: I yanked his hands behind his back, snapped his wrists together with a spell, then lifted his chest up with another. Thus, he was poised between me and the mirror in a kneeling position, propped up by the air itself so that he wasn't quite upright, nor down on his face either. This way, he was positioned just at the right angle for both of us to see his face, to see his chest, to see what I was now doing to his prick: precisely nothing, for I loved to see the way it slapped against his belly with my thrusts. And of course, I forced his back to curve like that of an animal in heat, so that his arse was offered, offered and spread wide, allowing me deeper into his body than I had ever been before.

"Brother!" he shouted, tossing in my grip, between my hand in his hair and the invisible hands that now held him in place.

"What's the matter? I think the fine, athletic gentleman is quite well-posed in this picture. The Defeat of the Vainglorious, I think I shall call it."

"Shut up and take me."

"Hmm?" I asked and slapped his chest, pinched his nipples until he squirmed sweetly around my prick, slapped him and pinched him until his chest was flushed an exquisite red. "I think it's you who should do all the work for a change. After all, you were so keen on demonstrating your skill before;" I chuckled in his ear. "Take yourself, Fadl. Fuck yourself on my cock."

"Oh, God--" but he did as he was told from sheer desperation, sobbing as I spat in my hand and closed it around his cock. Soon, he learned how to move within his bonds, slapping his arse against my hips with such fury it made me purr deep within my chest, pinch him more, bite his shoulders, his neck. And with each purr, each bite he threw himself down on me harder, deeper. 

"Good boy," I churred in his ear, "good boy," as if I were crooning to a page, twisting my fingers in his hair, squeezing his cock in my palm, rolling my hand only just enough to keep him on the edge, not enough to allow him release yet. Although soon he might come nevertheless, considering how deep I was inside of him: I shuddered as I felt myself entering the curve of his guts, that tight bend at the mouth of his colon closing around the tip of my prick. And the way the muscles of his entrance now spasmed around my length, oh, oh; I howled at that, as loud as he was now silent, still from the intensity of the penetration, cold sweat springing up on his back. And greedily, I lapped at this dew I had made appear, lapped at it, drove myself into the heated heaven of his flesh. 

"Has anyone ever been this deep inside of you, brother?" I asked him, nuzzling, brushing my head against his to push sweaty hair from his ear, from my cheek. I fucked him slow and deep, with long, long strokes, the sorts I give to a woman when I want to make her come, leaving just enough space between the blows to let her own muscles flutter and begin the cascade into orgasm. It was the moment between the strokes that counted, so that you would not disturb those all-important ripples of the flesh; that's what I always remembered from the first love manual I had read, knowing it for a truth from whenever I had been the one being taken. And now, between those minute pauses, I felt Fadl's release beginning to blossom; a tremor unfurling deep in his guts, deep, deep. "Tell me."

"No," he sobbed out so quietly I could barely hear him, his sides heaving, his bound hands brushing against my belly in a caress. "Only you, little brother," he whispered as he looked into my eyes through the mirror, his entire body trembling, "only you." 

And there, there, I felt it, the loosening of the arse at orgasm, the sickening slurp of his flesh--quickly, I pulled almost completely out of him, then pushed in deep once more, without mercy. The flutters had come; now the reward of his convulsions rippled around my cock as I beat each and every one of his tremors out of him. He sobbed, howled as I took him, but he threw himself back onto my cock, riding me as I rode him, his head glancing off the mirror, leaving a wet sweat-stain in its wake. I but yanked his head up by the hair and pounded him, took him so hard the slaps of my hips rang in the room, so violently the bed creaked. 

And oh, the way he shouted, now, shouted my name in his abandon, in his love for me, a forlorn "Jaffar, Jaffar," as I forced his release out of him! He hurt my ears as he shouted, deep from his throat, the vibrations of it cascading all around my cock as he sprayed my hand, the mirror, his belly. "Jaffar," he cried and again, a ripple, a belly-squeeze, a sperm-spurt; "Jaffar, Jaffar," his head thunking against the mirror, his breath steaming its surface.

"I'm here," I murmured as I released him from his bonds, as I laid him down on the bed, resting on top of him, still inside of him. "And I love you," I whispered against his shoulder, gently massaging his arms and his hands, lacing his fingers with mine. "Tell me you believe it, Fadl," I prayed him, a sudden melancholy gripping me by the throat, a desperation making me thrust so hard into him that it was a stab, a blow meant to wound, to open him once and for all for my love to flow.

He buried his face in the sheets and moaned; yet he clutched me with his fingers, took me with his hips, his buttocks, still arching into my touch. "I do," he murmured, a little resigned, laughing a little, as if at his own foolishness.

This so seared my heart that I had to embrace him, had to wrap my arms around him and pull him in to spoon me, so that I might turn his head enough to kiss him. "You feel wonderful," I told him, and it was not merely the saffron; he felt like silk and honey around my cock, his firm, grown man's body such a rare pleasure for me to drape around. 

And with that pleasure came the knowledge that we were to say goodbye on the morrow, and another knife twisted in my heart; another deep sigh was expelled from my chest. "When will you be coming back? Mehregan?"

"I want to say yes, but it's too early. The blasted peasants will be expecting me to deal out justice, then, so I cannot possibly leave. This time next year, perhaps."

"An entire year?" I groaned. 

He chuckled and glanced at me over his shoulder. "Don't tell me you don't have other men to play with before that."

"Don't start all that again," I said and slapped his chest. "I only have one big brother."

"And an absolutely _delicious_ wife. You had better make me an uncle before I come back, you realise that. Because if it's a girl, I'm marrying her, and I am not getting any younger. I still want to be able to perform on my wedding night."

"You say Mehregan is too soon, yet you're skipping one and a half decades into the future as we speak!"

He turned around and slipped out from underneath me, chuckling warmly as he gathered me into his arms and kissed me slow, deep. "You really _are_ going to miss me. I'm flattered." He glanced at our cocks, now both yellow, sticky, mine fully hard still. "You didn't come?"

"Nevermind that," I murmured. 

He raised a mocking eyebrow. "Are you perhaps insisting that I couldn't make you come again? You wound my pride, brother."

"Well, I--"

He pinned me down upon the bed and rutted against me, grinning wickedly. "You want to get _fucked,_ " he purred, kissing my neck, his chuckle vibrating into my chest. "You always did prefer to be taken, didn't you?"

"Well. Women don't have pricks, for a start," I grumbled. "I do enough of the taking with them, so--"

He nodded slowly. "So that when there's a hard prick somewhere in the vicinity, you prefer to hop on it yourself, to sate your greedy arse. What was that poem about a man so greedy to be fucked that he wanted a tree full of cocks, so that he might fly up it like a bird and perch upon each one? Was it you it was written about?"

I clapped my hand over his mouth. "Shut up."

He pulled my hand off his mouth. "Go on," he said and glanced between our bellies. "Use some of your magic. If you can bind a limb, surely you can bind me like a stallion? That way, I might stay up for a while longer."

I rolled my eyes. "You are absolutely ridiculous."

"And you, my brother, are a tart." And at that, he slid down my body and brought my cock to his mouth--yet at the last moment, he winced. "A moment."

I glanced down at myself and winced, too--even I drew a line somewhere when it came to the Byzantine pleasure. Toying with the threat of filth was one thing, but this was a different matter entirely, and gladly, I accepted the wet towel Fadl threw me, cleaning myself with it thoroughly. 

He cleaned himself with another, then waved his cock playfully at me, still at half-mast. "That's quite impressive for a man nearly fifty, wouldn't you say? And after two cups of wine."

"Three, if you count the one Aixa poured down her breasts."

"They were small breasts, so she spilled most of it. And if we count _her_ cups, it's four. When you were in the privy, she offered me one off her buttocks."

I threw my towel in his face, if only to see him spluttering in disgust. "I shall put it down to the saffron, then."

Of course, he threw his towel in my face in revenge, and there, we tussled like boys; indeed, it is true what they say about old men becoming like children. But now our battle was tender, loving, gentle; after all the furious exertions of love, we soon ended up facing each other's hips, mouthing each other's genitals, savouring each other's flesh. Neither of us was fully hard; if anything, this gave us an excuse to be slow and lazy, to simply focus on tasting each other, nuzzling each other, showing how much we loved one another. I spread my tongue wide and lapped up the remains of the saffron and the honey from his sack, from his perineum, kissed the arse I had so brutally hurt, soothing each fold with a tender lick. And he hugged my hips at that and sighed, a sigh shot through with such melancholy it stung my heart; now open in his need, he spread his legs and let me pleasure him in this manner, let me love him with my tongue, gifting him with this pleasure I loved most of all.

"You are too good," he whispered into the space between my thighs, a whisper I fancied was a little wet from tears. "Too good to a wretch like me." He trembled in my arms, his cock stirring against my chest; he pressed kiss after fervent kiss over my own arse, making me moan against his in turn. "Pray, brother, use your magic, so that I might love you."

I hushed him, quiet, gathering him into my arms so that we now lay face to face on our sides, my hand soft upon his cock. "Will this do?" I asked and kissed him, sending little tendrils of power from my fingertips to wrap about the root of his cock, around the root of his sack, exactly in the way he had asked me to. 

"Yes, I think so," he laughed, disbelieving as I let go of him and his cock and balls were lifted by invisible straps, the trapped blood hardening his cock before our eyes. "That's quite a trick. You must teach me how to do that."

But I cut his words short by sliding down and taking him into my mouth, smiling up at him with my mouth full, cupping his balls in my hand. He must have been sore, so sore but on a night like this, it did not matter--I wanted to give him something to take with himself to the cold, frosty halls of Balkh to remember me by. And I filled my mind with his beauty as I filled my mouth with his flesh; I relished the heavy, languid weight of his eyelids as he closed his eyes in pleasure, the tremor of the tendons of his beautiful, strong neck, the way the lamplight slid down the long, slim curves of his swordsman's hips, bathing him in shades of gold and red and green.

But now he opened his eyes a fraction and stroked my cheek, smiling down at me, his voice a drawl as thick as honey. "Brother, I would take you."

I smiled back at him, then fluffed up a pillow and hugging it, laid myself down in front of the mirror, smiling at him over my shoulder. "Slowly."

"I was going to," he grinned as he kissed my back. He emptied the last of the oil between my buttocks and then threw the bottle aside, sent it shattering against the wall to join its companion. A fine mess for the servants to clean up, leaving no doubt as to what had taken place in this chamber, and he knew it, too. "Let them talk," he whispered into my ear as he began to ease himself inside of me; "let them speculate, wonder who fucked whom."

"God--!" I was glad of the pillow, as now I had something to squeeze, something to pant into as he pushed into me, so fast, deliberately wanting to shock me with his size and his length. _That's not slow,_ I wanted to snap at him, but my teeth chattered so that I couldn't. Even when he was not at his hardest, he was still monstrous, and the angle allowed him so deep into me he was as deep--no, deeper than I had ever been inside of him, given that he had an inch on me at least. I would never get used to this, never, ever; every time he entered me, he devastated me, making me lose sense of all the six directions, making me forget all prayers, making me forget my name.

Yet he laced his fingers with mine just as I had done with him, settling his weight upon me with soft kisses on my shoulders, resting completely still atop me. "Jaffar," he whispered, giving me back my name, calling me to be present at the centre of his pleasure.

I drew in a deep breath, and it was as if my entire body had transformed from being so filled; my very lungs having to spread out differently now that he had pushed my innards up so. I shivered and clasped his fingers, breathed deep once more, willing my body to focus on the pleasure instead of the extreme, nauseating stretch. Fadl had never been as avid a reader as I was, even when it came to love manuals--I was flattered by the way he lost himself inside of me so, but clearly he had forgotten the most important thing to do at this stage. 

"It'll hurt less if you keep on moving," I murmured into the pillow, trying not to sound like I was nagging. 

He sighed, in a way that made me sure he was rolling his eyes. "You always moan about that."

I wriggled my buttocks a little. "I wouldn't, if you didn't always forget."

He thrust inside of me deliberately hard, pushing me forwards so fast I nearly slid off the pillow, the air blown out of my lungs. "Better?" he asked sweetly.

"I'll get you for this," I groaned, gasping for air, hugging the pillow against my chest.

"Later," he grinned and began to move inside of me properly, finally rolling his hips like a true lover. "Is that better?"

But now it felt so good I had to pause breathing for a while, simply to savour the glide of his cock, stoking an entirely new heat inside of me. _Yes,_ I told him by arching my back like a cat, _yes,_ I swayed with my hips, spreading my legs wide underneath him, letting out a trembling moan of utter delight. Again, I moaned, letting the vibrations of it ripple around his cock, pleasuring us both with the sound, deepening the sensation, the waves of it spreading into my every limb.

And he did not speak in words for a while, either: he merely cupped my face to kiss my mouth, my ears, my neck, so that I shivered in joy around his loving, undulating against him. Slowly, he melted me, and himself, into utter pleasure, rocking together as but the one human being, one flesh, golden and soft and hard and tight and sweet. He was too tired to thrust wildly, and I was too tired to thrust back; our arousal rose and fell like gentle waves, and I do not know how long we spent like this, nor did I care then. He flowed into me and I flowed into him, each one of his strokes now striking gold from my guts so that I was dripping, myself flowing out onto the bedsheets, flowing out as sap and as stuttered cries and moans. 

"Let me see you," he murmured, wrapping his hand around my forehead and his other hand around my cock, laughing in delight when he discovered how hard I was, how wet I was. "Where does all of this _come_ from, my wellspring? I've never seen a boy get as wet as you do, as wet as a woman."

I turned my head to nuzzle him. "You were the first to call me half-woman, as I recall," I laughed onto his lips, supping little kisses from his mouth, now rocking between the wonderful twin heats of his hand and his prick. "Perhaps it was you who turned me into one."

He took his wet hand to his mouth and lapped at my wetness, greedily, inhaling it before returning his hand to my cock. "To think that in the one Jaffar I have both a brother and a sister," he kissed against my ear, "and that both siblings are my favourites." He stroked me a little more firmly, now lengthening his thrusts, changing the angle of his hips a little. "I would feel this little cunny come, brother. But let me see your face as you do."

"Then move your hips," I teased him, rolling mine like a girl, again undulating my belly the way women do as they dance, knowing how each and every time, it drove him wild from desire. "Take me, brother mine."

"Watch yourself," he rasped as he pulled back and lifted me with himself; I braced myself on all fours, letting him claim me with his hand and his cock just as I had done to him. 

And I preferred this, I had to admit, would always have preferred it: the firm, lithe, muscled length of him pressed against my back, his weight behind me and upon me, his cock sinking into me to the root, so deep I could not but weep. But they were dry tears, dry sobs; now, I finally threw myself back onto his thrusts, as unabashed as the harlot I was, truly giving him that little cunny he so desired. Each one of his blows hit home, hit me so deep and so hard that white and purple and red and green lights flashed in my eyes, and I could barely see my own reflection, see the first spurt of white flying out of the tip of my cock onto his pumping fist--

And now I was falling, howling, impaling myself onto Fadl, the strength of his body, the heat of it, the firmness of it, clasping at whatever part of him I could reach. I could never have imagined I would have been able to come this violently, this hard this late at night, after all we had done, but red wave upon white wave upon black wave crashed through my body as he plowed into me, jostling my organs so that I feared my heart would stop. But I was glad for the violence, glad for the rawness of his sex, glad of the fury with which he now threw me down upon the mattress and pounded into me, still stroking my cock in his fist. He kept on fucking me, slamming into me, his balls slapping into me loudly, wetly, noisily; I pushed his hand aside and continued to stroke myself, to wring out the last drops of my release as he, too, pushed himself into completion on top of me. 

I opened myself for him, opened wide, breathed out as deep as I could to open every last inch of my guts to him so that he was buried in me up to his balls, so deep in my guts I wanted to be sick, but it was perfect, perfect, perfect. With a high keen, he wrapped his arms about my chest, crushing me, crying out so loudly he hurt my ear, his hips slamming into me over and over. And with my love, my body I continued to take him, milking him as he had milked me, squeezing the last of his sperm out of him with my muscles, drinking him into myself entire. As if this way I could keep him, keep him forever safe within myself, to keep him from his own madness, from his own sorrow, from his own fury--

"Fadl," I cried while he was still shuddering on top of me, his face wet against my shoulder. "Fadl." 

I rolled him off me, gathered him into my arms and hugged him as tightly as I could, even if all my limbs were still shaking. I pulled the bedcovers over us, used the thickest of them to cover us, to trap our heat underneath; to trap within our scent, our salt, our sweetness. 

On a moment's whim, I pulled the covers over our heads, just as we had done when we were boys. "There."

From Fadl's voice, I could hear he was smiling, and that he was also half-asleep. "The Caspian."

He remembered _that_ particular tent as well as I did. "Exactly." That had been the most boring of all our trips, to the wet, moist forests of Hyrcania, where Father had not caught a single one of the wild cats he had come there for. Yet we had been ambushed by heathen bandits, barely escaping with our lives, and Mother had nearly gutted him for having endangered us in such a manner. "Remember how he told us it would make men of us?"

"Yes," he smiled, nuzzling my chest in the dark, his breath soft against my heart. "And how we spent the entire trip just sucking each other's cocks."

"Well, there were the tribal girls."

"I think of them too, sometimes. And whether we should go and check up on any little Jaffars and Fadls we may have fathered." He yawned loudly. "I mean it about your daughter, however. You had better hurry up and bring her about."

"Yassamin will kill me if I put it to her that way." I could not help but yawn myself. "Besides, you're not having my daughter until you move to Baghdad. Not her or Aixa."

He yawned again. "I'll get back to you on that in--oh, fifteen years."

"You're impossible."

"Mnng. Sleep."

By the time I had thought of a retort, he was already snoring against my chest--you got to sample some of that roar that night we shared him, didn't you, my love?--and despite the tremendous noise, I did not have the heart to wake him up. So I pulled the blankets more tightly over us, pulled him onto his side so that he would not snore so much and drifted off to sleep in his arms.

***

"There. Does that satisfy you, my love?" 

Yassamin has disappeared underneath the mirror's level, and now Jaffar worries a little. But soon, her cries give her away: he winces, as he is sure the entire caravanserai must be able to hear her moans, loud as she is as she comes. 

"Have some decency, wife!" he scolds her, but can't help but laugh as he folds away the letter.

Yassamin finally lifts her head into view, her hair ornaments completely askew, her kohl smeared about her eyes. "I sealed the doors and the windows for noise as well," she mumbles and swallows down a large glassful of milk; "I knew what was coming."

Jaffar sprawls back on his cushions, his own prick out; he is lazily caressing it with his hand, taunting Yassamin with its length. "Did you, now?"

"Yes," she says absent-mindedly, unable to take her eyes off his cock. "Send me the jade fellow. I'm begging of you."

"No."

"I'll go to Halima if you won't. She still has the leather harness, does she not?"

With a long, weary sigh, Jaffar digs out the jade phallus from underneath the cushions and throws it into the mirror. And there, it sinks, like a stone into a pond, the mirror rippling after it: on the other side, Yassamin catches the toy, then smiles with such delirious pleasure that Jaffar fears she might go mad. "Don't do yourself an injury."

"I won't," Yassamin says, kissing the stone prick's head with exaggerated pleasure. "Thank you. She _did_ invite me over for dinner tomorrow night, however. She and Gol."

And Jaffar knows very well that the image that now springs to his mind should be that of a caravanserai feast, but oh, no: an orgy worthy of Lesbos itself spreads itself out before his mind's eye, and his cock wilts a little in jealousy. "Oh, no," he groans and sprawls back on the cushions.

Yassamin nods. "Yes. I _could_ take this mirror with me, in case you were worried for my chastity." 

"You had better," he snarls. "And what chastity?!"

Yassamin takes her hand to her heart. "As great as that of my esteemed husband."

"Enough." If he is to lose her to those maenads, he deserves some entertainment in turn, right here, right now. "Turn on your back. Let me see it. All of it."

"Is that an order?" she pretends to consider it, pressing the jade cock to her lips, tilting her head.

He growls and strokes himself. "Show me. Show me how much you _appreciated_ my story."

With the chuckle of a houri, she pulls her nightgown over her head and lies down upon her bed, spreading her legs, stroking the lips of her cunny with her fingertips. "Can you see it well enough?"

Jaffar draws a sharp breath in through his nose, hissing. "I can almost _smell_ it, woman. Take yourself with the jade, now."

And he does not have to tell her twice: she is so heated, so swollen the jade toy sinks inside of her with but a few thrusts. Her cunny is so wet that the entire toy is soon glistening from it, drenched from it, slipping in her fingers as she masturbates with it; but so is Jaffar's cock, slick within the grip of his stroking fist.

"May I?" she gasps, biting her lip, her hand quick upon the root of her clitoris, her other hand working the toy in and out with long, hard strokes. "I will not be able to hold back--"

"Come," Jaffar says, his own balls lifting, but he wills himself to wait, just a few more moments, for she is so close, so close, and he wants to finish at the same time as she. He imagines himself the jade, stroking himself in time with her thrusts, sinking into the sweet slickness of her cunny, and his nostrils flare as he imagines the scent of her sweetness, like peaches, like peaches--

And now, Yassamin turns onto her stomach and rides her hands, her favourite way of masturbating, the way she comes the hardest, the entire weight of her body upon her hands. She rides the jade cock, thrusting it inside of herself with her fingertips as she ruts into the balls of her thumbs, screaming into the pillow. Her buttocks jiggle, her pink little anus, gleaming from her wetness, clenches over and over--and now, Jaffar is spilling into his fist, groaning as she moans, howling as she shrieks, coming as she comes, on and on and on, trembling forever and ever. She spasms upon the jade, he thrusts into his fist, them feeding each other's lust-flames back and forth eighty miles apart until finally, their moans die and neither of them can strain any longer. 

"Oh, how I wish you were here," Yassamin sighs, pressing her wet hand against the mirror, and as Jaffar kisses it, he fancies he can taste her, he can, he can; his longing crushes his heart in its fist. 

"I wish I was there, too," he sighs, resting his forehead against the mirror. "I could cast a transportation spell, but if I did come through there now, it would make me too ill, perhaps deathly ill. I would not want to come there only to expire at your feet."

"True," she says. "There is plenty enough time for you to pine at my feet when I come back," she smirks. "Only a few days, now, my love. Did you mean it when you said I should write to you in the meantime?"

"Please, do," he laughs. "It'd be much more entertaining than Khurshid's star-charts."

"I apologise in advance if tomorrow night does not devolve into Sapphic orgies, however," she grins. "But I will bring the mirror."

"I _order_ tomorrow night to devolve into Sapphic orgies!" he cries.

"You are no longer their master!"

"Still," he pouts.

She laughs, kissing him through the mirror. "I shall see what I can do. But for now, good night, beloved husband. Know that I love you more with each passing day."

"You are not jealous of Fadl?"

She shakes her head. "Each of these secrets you have shared with me makes me love you all the more; to know that you trust your heart in my hand thus." She glances at the jade phallus. "And you saw how much I enjoyed it. I will probably have worn him out by the time I get back!"

"You are the greatest wife a man could ever have," he murmurs, kissing her reflection, kissing it, kissing it. "God be with you, Yassamin of Basra. Until we meet again."

"Until we meet again, beloved husband," she says, kissing him back. "God be with you. Good night."

The mirror grows dark, and with it, the entire study seems to grow cold. Jaffar folds his letter amongst all the other love letters he has kept, locking the chest with a sigil, two, three, four. "God be with you, beloved wife," he murmurs as he turns out the lanterns, pausing at the door, smiling. "And God be with you, my wayward brother, wherever you are."

***

END

***

**Author's Note:**

> Freely rebloggable Tumblr promo post for this fic [here.](http://aikainkauna.tumblr.com/post/130340276948/fic-like-creepers-entwined-jaffarfadl-nc-17)
> 
> A NSFW illustration (manip) of Jaffar riding Fadl [here.](http://aikainkauna.tumblr.com/post/130263610118/youre-not-serious-fadl-said-his-eyes-snapping)
> 
> And for a lighter take on these ridiculous dorks, [some doodles](http://aikainkauna.tumblr.com/post/159841679618/i-cant-sleep-so-heres-some-evil-medieval) of the scene where Jaffar stretches out the mirror to encompass the wall at the foot of the bed:.


End file.
